1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to face recognition, and more particularly, to a Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) based face recognition apparatus and method using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) learning per subgroup.
2. Description of the Related Art
Face recognition is used to identify at least one person whose face is present in a still or moving picture using a given face database (DB). Since face image data greatly changes according to a person's pose or illumination, it is difficult to classify pose data or illumination data with respect to the same identity into the same class. Accordingly, a high-accuracy classification method is required. Usually, PCA and LDA which are sub-space analysis methods and Support Vector Machine (SVM) are used as an algorithm for a classification operation. A classification method using SVM has been highlighted due to excellent recognition performance. However, since a face image has several hundreds of bytes computation within the SVM is complicated, and complexity is high. Moreover, since binary decision is used, the method using the SVM cannot be used for large-capacity face recognition. Alternatively, when a sub-space analysis method is used, a size of a face image can be reduced from several hundreds of bytes to several tens of bits. Thus, complexity can be decreased. Among sub-space analysis methods, PCA is an unsupervised learning algorithm and provides satisfactory recognition performance compared to internal complexity, and thus is widely spread in a field of initial face recognition. LDA is a method for distinctly discriminating groups indicating different identities. The LDA uses a transform matrix which maximizes a variance between images included in different groups and minimizes a variance between images included in the same group. The LDA is described in detail in “Introduction to Statistical Pattern Recognition” [Fukunaga, K. Academic Press, 2nd ed., 1990].
Recently, PCA-based LDA (referred to as PCLDA) has been developed. The PCLDA is a supervised learning algorithm and has advantages of sub-space analysis and as high recognition performance as the SVM, and therefore, the PCLDA is widely used for face recognition. The PCLDA is described in detail by P. N. Belhumeur, J. P. Hespanha, and D. J. Kriegman [“Eigenface vs. Fisher Faces: Recognition Using Class Specific Linear Projection”, IEEE Trans. PAMI, Vol. 19, No. 7, pp. 711-720, July, 1997].
However, the above-described conventional methods have the following problems. Firstly, to increase recognition performance, a large capacity of a training data set is constructed and used. Since it is difficult to obtain a large capacity of a training data set, data sets having different characteristics are mixed. In this situation, specific characteristics of the data sets cannot be properly reflected in a learning process, which may deteriorate performance.
Secondly, in designing a face recognition system using a conventional method, a learned basis vector expresses only current characteristics of a data set during a learning process but does not properly express characteristics and features of a place where the face recognition system is actually installed and used. For example, face images photographed under normal illumination are usually used in a leaning process when face recognition systems are designed. However, since the face recognition systems are usually used at the common front doors of apartment buildings or the entrances of office rooms, illumination conditions of installation places are different from those used to obtain the face images for the leaning process. To obtain the face images for the leaning process under the same illumination conditions as the actual illumination conditions, a large amount of equipment investment is required. To overcome this problem, a method of performing a learning process using face images directly obtained at an installation place may be used. However, when a face recognition system is installed at a place such as a personal house where users are not many, it is difficult to obtain learning data of a satisfactory level. Even though users' face images are collected at such place, due to a small number of users, conventional learning methods may not be used.
To overcome the above problems, local face images, which are directly registered by users at an actual installation place of a face recognition system, and global face images, which are registered in the face recognition system in advance under a situation covering most of various environments, may be used together. In this case, a face recognition system may provide reliable performance even when a small number of users exist. However, since the number of global face images is usually greater than the number of local face images or the global face images have more characteristics than the local face images, the problem firstly mentioned in the above description occurs. As a result, a face recognition system cannot be optimized to an installation place.